Little guys, gals win big battles in Superior

It was a big day for little guys in big battles.

Nearly 285 wrestlers gathered on the mats for the Superior Invitational and the first Little Guy Wrestling meet of the season, but those little guys included little gals, too - almost 50 of them from seven teams of Sanders, Mineral, Lake, and Missoula counties.

Superior and Frenchtown each had more than 60 grapplers, but Plains had the largest team of Sanders County with 45 boys and 10 girls. Hot Springs had the smallest number of wrestlers with six boys and one girl at the meet. Savage Heat's Thai McCrea, wrestling in the 65-pound novice class, went undefeated with three matches - two of them pins, and an 8-2 victory against McKinley Lyons of Thompson Falls. This is McCrea's third year with the Little Guy Wrestling program, according to head coach Andrew Leichtnam.

Leichtnam has five beginner and five novice wrestlers this season, although only seven kids wrestled Saturday, when his team had 13 wins and only five losses. High school wrestler David Chapman is serving as an assistant coach. "David is an irreplaceable asset to our club. He's the only help I have this year and he's incredibly reliable and great with the kids," said Leichtnam, the team coach for eight years. He said that he was very happy with the team's performance, but added that they will continue to work on the basics before the tournament at Mission this Saturday.

The Superior meet went from 9 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. Saturday with two to six matches at a time for beginners, novice, middle, and junior high. High school and junior high school wrestlers served as referees and helped coach. This is the 10th year for Superior to host a Little Guy meet, said Charlie Crabb, head coach for the Bobcat team. Little Guy Wrestling was divided into four groups. Periods for the junior high wrestlers were two minutes for the first period and one minute each for periods two and three. For the novice and beginners, the three periods were one minute apiece.

Jesse Jermyn, head coach for the Plains team, hopes his three eighth-grade wrestlers will be on his high school wrestling team next season, including Lyla MacDonald, younger sister of Lily MacDonald, a star wrestler for the Plains-Hot Springs Savage Horsemen team two seasons ago.

"Everybody wrestled tough," said Jermyn, who has coached the Plains team for three years. Competing in the novice 95-pound class, Colton Young nabbed a 15-second pin against a Mission wrestler, probably the fastest on the team, said Jermyn. Young, a Little Guy Wrestler for four years, won three of his four matches Saturday. The coach said a handful of the team members went through the day undefeated, including his son, Owen.

Jermyn was assisted by Kyle Brown, Michael Chenoweth and Keaton Bannout. Brown's daughter, 13-year-old Kiara, was the oldest girl on the Plains team. Wrestling in the 126-pound class, she lost her one match against a Frenchtown Bronc, but said it was a tough match. The coaches didn't keep track of their wins and loses, but Jermyn believes around 90% of them were wins.

Plains has wrestlers in every class with juniors as the smallest and more than a dozen in the beginner class. The middle and juniors practice four days a week and the beginners and novice wrestlers train twice a week. There were more than 100 beginners at Saturday's meet, but they were the most entertaining, said Trevor Harris, one of the assistant coaches for Thompson Falls. "I really enjoy the chaos from them," he said.

Thompson Falls had 30 boys and six girls and is being co-coached this season by Braxton Eubanks and Garrett Jones. The Blue Hawks have wrestlers from 50 pounds to a 225-pound six-grader and kids from 5 to 14 years old. The team includes kids from Noxon and Trout Creek, which no longer have their own programs, said Eubanks.

"They all fought to the end and that's what we like to see," said Eubanks, who has helped with the team for three years. "Overall our kids did fantastic, as a club I couldn't have asked for a better showing for our first meet," said Eubanks. He said several of his wrestlers went undefeated and that his wrestlers probably won 80-90% of their matches and at least four won all their matches. He also noted that his wrestlers had multiple matches that went into overtime with about half of them favoring his team. "There are some things we need to go over, but I think all-in-all they're looking pretty good," said Jones, who's in his first year with the team. "We have a lot of kids this year that really want to win so they are being pretty competitive, including at practice," he said.

Crabb felt the meet went well and he expressed thanks to the community members who helped make the event a success. He said they couldn't have done it without the assistance from the high school and junior high kids as referees. He didn't keep track of his Bobcat stats, but thought his team did well, considering they had only four days of practice earlier that week. He believed they had more wins than losses.

Mission will host a tournament on Friday, Feb. 23, for the middle and junior classes, and a competition for beginners and novice classes on Saturday, Feb. 24. On March 2, Little Guy Wrestlers will compete at Libby. There will also be matches on the same day in Polson for beginners and novice classes. Jermyn said he's looking into a meet at Arlee.